Thoughts and notes about the books I am reading. My entries are not book reviews but just my personal thoughts and opinions about what I'm reading at the moment. The entries obviously contain SPOILERS.

Llamé al cielo y no me oyó 5 (pages 162-247)

We learn that the only son of D Juan Bautista, Lucía’s father, dies of chicken pox. D Juan Bautista is distraught and heartbroken, and on one occasion he asks Isabel Vela about the child she was expecting years ago. He wonders if the maid secretly had the baby, and at the question Isabel doesn’t know what to do. She remembers Lucía so happy and cheerful, and knowing that this will only complicate things for her, Isabel simply shakes her head, but D Juan Bautista doesn’t believe her.

Years later D Juan Bautista decides to change his will as his son, his universal heir, is dead. So he hires another notary who is not involved in the family, and asks him to write up the will. D Juan Bautista has some questions and wonders if he can leave his patrimony to anybody he wants. He has two nephews, who he dislikes as the two young men only come to see him out of greed. So in the end D Juan Bautista, who still believes there is a child of his out there, declares the child he had with Isabel Vela his universal heir, but if in two months’ time this man/woman didn’t turn up, the money and properties will revert to the nephews. This is a very dangerous thing D Juan Bautista has done, because I am afraid that if his nephews were to hear about the conditions of the will, Lucia might be in danger.

Also, Lucía has grown suspicious. Sagrario becomes sick with a very high fever and is delirious, talking in her sleep. She keeps mentioning Lucía, Isabel Ruiz Vela, and the lord of Majarromaque. The doctor diagnoses pneumonia and instructs Sagrario and Benita Ruiz, another nurse, to give Sagrario only vegetables. At that time Lucía worked for Lorenzo Vargas-Machuca, a older client of Pedro, so she had to return to her employer, and the following Sunday she returns to find Sagrario awake and much better. When Lucía asks her about the names she kept mentioning in her sleep, Sagrario pales but she simply says that those were just an old woman’s crazy talk. Yet, Lucía doesn’t believe her, but she doesn’t mention the fact again.

Lucia now has fallen in love with a guard, Gaspar, who works for the governor. As soon as she first saw him, she felt something she had never felt before. So it is a couple of months later that he sees him keeping guard at the door of the House of the Governor. It is clear that Gaspar has also noticed, and it is a few weeks later that they talk for the first time, and he asks Lucia if they can walk on her day off, and first, she tells him that she has to visit Sagrario, but the man tells her that he can escort her to see the old nurse and then wait for her and walk back to her house, and Lucia agrees. Adela guesses that Lucia is in love when she hears her singing cheerfully and smiling even more widely. And Pedro sees Lucia and Gaspar talk one day, and he talks to the young man, warning him in a jocular way to be careful as Adela and Merceditas are very fond of Lucia, and they won’t take well if Lucia marries and leaves them.

Apart from Lucia, Pedro is busy with his cases. One of the cases is to defend two siblings Josefa and Juan Solís, who are accused of incest. There is a baby who Josema claims is hers, and the two siblings took the child to a doctor as the baby had problems breathing. When the doctor asked them who the father of the child was, the two siblings didn’t say anything and fled from the doctor’s office, so the physician reported them. Now as Pedro is in charge of their defence, they find the two siblings won’t talk even if they are to face terrible sentences. In the end Pedro, who is so clever, finds out the truth when he visits the elder sister, Leonor. During the trial Pedro proves that there was never incest, because the baby is not Josefa’s but Leonor’s. The woman is married, but her husband left on a ship to America, and she hasn’t heard of him in three years. So she had an affair with the son of the man she worked for. When she fell pregnant, her lover threatened to kill her and the baby. So she and her siblings decided that they could come up with a story. Josefa, who is single, would pretend to be the mother of the child. What they didn’t count on was that Josefa and Juan would be accused of incest.

Josefa and Juan are acquitted, but then Leonor is accused of adultery and the judge orders for the woman to be arrested. Yet, D Pedro hasn’t had the last word, and he proves that Leonor’s husband went missing at sea, and Leonor has requested that her husband be declared dead, so that means that Leonor didn’t commit adultery. Pedro goes as far as to visit that got Leonor pregnant, and with a clever trick of his he gets the man to give up on his threats to Leonor and even makes him pay some money for the child.

Thoughts and notes about the books I am reading. My entries are not book reviews but just my personal thoughts and opinions about what I'm reading at the moment. The entries obviously contain SPOILERS.